I’ll Show You: Spite as a Reactive Attitude

The Monist ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 103 (2) ◽  
pp. 163-175
Author(s):  
Krista K Thomason
Keyword(s):  
Reactive Attitude ◽  
Destructive Behavior

Abstract Spite is typically considered a vicious emotion that causes us to engage in petty, vindictive, and sometimes self-destructive behavior. Even though it has this bad reputation, I will argue that spite is a reactive attitude. Spite is emotional defiance of another’s command: to spite you, I will do something exactly because you told me not to. Our liability to feelings of spite presupposes that we recognize others as having practical authority, which is why it qualifies as a reactive attitude. I conclude by offering conditions under which spite can be justified and unjustified.

Animal Models of Self-Destructive Behavior and Suicide

1985 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 299-310 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline N. Crawley ◽  
Mary E. Sutton ◽  
David Piekar
Keyword(s):  
Animal Models ◽  
Destructive Behavior

Self-Destructive Behavior in Hospitalized Medical and Surgical Patients

1985 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 279-289 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles H. Kellner ◽  
Connie L. Best ◽  
John M. Roberts ◽  
Oliver Bjorksten
Keyword(s):  
Surgical Patients ◽  
Destructive Behavior

Respect and the Reactive Attitudes

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bennett W. Helm
Keyword(s):  
Reactive Attitudes ◽  
Reactive Attitude ◽  
Community Members ◽  
Recognition Respect

The nature of both respect and the reactive attitudes is illuminated by understanding the reactive attitudes to be a class of emotions distinguished by their forming a distinctively interpersonal pattern of rationality. In feeling a reactive attitude such as resentment, one holds the wrongdoer responsible by “calling on” him to feel guilt and on witnesses to feel disapprobation or indignation; other things being equal, one’s resentment is unwarranted if that “call” is not taken up by others. This call and its uptake are made intelligible through the community members’ joint background commitment to the value of the community and its norms, and to the dignity of its members as members—a commitment undertaken and reaffirmed in their reactive attitudes. The resulting interpersonal rational patterns of reactive attitudes constitute their joint recognition respect for its norms and for each other as a part of their joint reverence for the community.

Queer Sondheim

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott F. Stoddart
Keyword(s):  
Functional Relationship ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Destructive Behavior

Road Showmarked the acknowledgement of a gay sensibility in Sondheim’s work: not only do the homosexual couple, Addison Mizner and Hollis Bessemer, represent the show’s only functional relationship, the lovers sing its one duet, “The Best Thing that Ever Has Happened.” How do the queer instances that have always permeated Sondheim’s work resonate for gay audiences? While some critics attest that Sondheim must be read as a closeted writer, this is true only if you read his work superficially, focusing on questions regarding the relationships in his works: from Bobby’s chosen isolation inCompanythrough Sweeney’s villainous rampage inSweeney Todd(1979) to Fosca’s destructive behavior patterns inPassion(1994). The chapter reveals how, in dismantling the heteronormative structure of the traditional musical, Sondheim “queered” the form in a variety of ways.

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